AMANDA PAYNE - Actress, Playwright.



About
Upcoming
Work
Contact
@amandaepayne






PERFORMANCE DATES



202501/09
31/08
30/08
20/08
29/07
25/07
14/07
04/07
27/06
31/05
29/05
09/04
08/04
06/04
11/01
Alle Markten Thuis
Alle Markten Thuis
Alle Markten Thuis
Alle Markten Thuis
Alle Markten Thuis
Rites of Play
Alle Markten Thuis
Alle Markten Thuis
Alle Markten Thuis
Two Across
Two Across
De Keizerin
De Keizerin
De Keizerin
Two Across


202419/12
15/12
12/12
08/12
04/12
01/12
28/11
27/11
26/11
24/11
24/11
21/11
21/11
20/11
03/11
31/10
25/09
11/06
10/06
09/06
08/06
25/05
07/04
05/04
Als het donker wordt
Als het donker wordt
Als het donker wordt
Als het donker wordt
Als het donker wordt
Als het donker wordt
Fanfare II
Als het donker wordt
Als het donker wordt
Zwerm
Als het donker wordt
Seeking Solace
Als het donker wordt
Als het donker wordt
Als het donker wordt
Als het donker wordt
Two Across
Two Across
Two Across
Two Across
Two Across
Two Across
Two Across
Two Across
Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ
Wilminktheater
De Harmonie
Theater aan ’t Vrijthof SPOT
De Vereeniging
SIGN
Musis
Orpheus
Concertgebouw
De Doelen
Plarform Post
Muziekgebouw
PHIL
Willem Twee
TivoliVredenburg
Sandberg Institute
Door Open Space
Door Open Space
Door Open Space
Door Open Space
O. Festival
Rewire Festival
Rewire Festival



Education
2014 - 2018     BA Music
(Muziektheater)
Codarts Univercity of the Arts, Rotterdam

2022 - 2024    MA Fine Arts and Design (Re:master Opera)
Sandberg Institute,  Amsterdam

Press
‘Amsterdam Poet’s Theater blijft radicaal experimenteren’,
Theaterkrant Review by Marijn Lems
2025

‘Dromen kunnen ook vrienden zijn’,
Theaterkrant Review by Elise van Dam
2021

‘Musicalmakers van morgen’,
Theatermaker Magazine interview by Sanne Thierens en Erica van der Valk
2020
             






Last Updated 24.10.31
THEATRE





01.    Two Across (2025)A spoken opera about watching and being watched.  Set in a dimly-lit living room looking out over an apartment building on the opposite side of the street.

A dialogue that unfolds like an unfinished melody. Words and phrases repeat, forming rhythmic patterns that echo techno beats or pop melodies, yet never fully complete. Driven less by meaning and more by the sound of the words these rhythms overlap and intertwine into a textured sonic tapestry.

Photos by Liam McCall
Dijktheater - Amsterdam


02.    Alle Markten Thuis (2025)

by De Borskis

A musical mosaic of encounters with ordinary people and extraordinary stories. In Alle Markten Thuis, a violinist and a singer venture into the market ( De Dappermarkt) they happen to live beside. With music as their guide, they reach out to ‘the other’ who may be closer than they think.

For this piece, I wrote verbatim lyrics based on interviews with people from the Dappermarkt. More...

See upcoming performance dates.


03.    De Keizerin (2025)
 by Amsterdam Poet’s Theatre (Artun Alaska Arasli and Joachim Robbrecht)

De Keizerin is a morbid monologue for two performers, a reflection on sleep and sleeplessness, late-night wanderings, senseless cruelty, broken relationships… and flowers.

Theaterkrant: ‘Payne’s speelstijl sluit daarbij aan. Ze hanteert een insteek die aan monologen in de recente Britse traditie doet denken, zoals die van Sarah Kane, Martin Crimp en Dennis Kelly – duister, beheerst, hoofdelijk, emotionally repressed. Ze is altijd in controle, zelfs als ze in woede uitbarst tegenover haar man, die vanwege zijn comateuze staat buiten haar bereik blijft.‘

Photo by Artun Alaska Arasli
De Brakke Grond -  Amsterdam


04.    Als het donker wordt (2024)
 by Isabel Pronk for Dutch Classical Talent

Isabel Pronk takes you on a journey through the hauntingly beautiful emotions of loneliness and vulnerability that arise in the quiet of the night. But from this solitude emerges a powerful strength, the courage to begin again. More...

Watch the trailer

05.   I know we should have already been here (2024)
 by Re:master Opera for Opera Forward Festival

a site-specific performance commissioned by the Dutch National Opera and the Opera Forward Festival. The starting point for the performance was the concept of instruction scores, a working method that balances the improvisational skills of the performer with rehearsed sequences.

Photos by  Isabell Janssen
Dutch National Opera - Amsterdam

06.     Welcome to the house of the ruler (2024)
 by Re:master Opera for Amsterdam Dance Event

The terminus a quo for the performance was the opening of H’art Museum’s exhibition about Julius Caesar I came, I saw, I met my doom and Elif Murat’s sound piece Sonic Phantasmagoria.

Photos by Hildur Elísa
H’Art museum - Amsterdam


07.    Pink Elephants on Parade (2021)
by Werkplaats Walhalla and de Transmissie

Pink Elephants on Parade is an anti-coming-of-age story in the form of an electro-pop performance that transports you into a psychedelic fairy tale with live visuals and music.

In 2019, Jip Bartels, de Transmissie, and Amanda Payne won the Walhalla Pitch with their hallucinatory presentation of Pink Elephants on Parade, an ode to imagination and a requiem for childlike fantasy.

Watch the trailer 

Photos by Vincent van Woerkom
Walhalla Werkplaats - Rotterdam



08.    Niet Antigone (2021)
 by Nanoek

Niet Antigone is a contemporary response to Sophocles’ timeless tragedy. At its heart are two young women, artistically aligned in their defiance of the status quo. But unity gives way to tension, and the collaboration unravels into a fierce battle between writer and composer.
What are they truly trying to say through this reinterpretation of Antigone? And who, in the end most embodies Antigone: the one who writes the words or the one who scores the emotion?

WORM.UBIK (O. festival for Opera. Music. Theatre) Rotterdam

09.    Privileged the Musical (2019)
by P(L)AYHAUS

P(L)AYHAUS is a music-theater collective of Charlotte Dommershausen and Amanda Payne. They collide urgent social issues with atomic physics, fuse spoken word and R&B with the drama of Poulenc and stage a musical with zero flying sets, no tap-dancing just raw energy.

Photo by Guido Bosua
Pleintheater (Fringe Festival) - Amsterdam

10.    T.U.G. Club (2018)
by P(L)AYHAUS

The Unsatisfied Girls Club asks: how can a privileged young woman speak sincerely about social injustice? In this electro-pop-tinged, poetry-laced performance, P(L)AYHAUS dives in (naive but earnest) on a search for a stance, for something authentic, for the first step toward… well, toward what, exactly?

Tapastheater - Amsterdam






© Cargo Amanda Payne (2025)